A Greener City With Less Red Tape
Here's a potentially good idea about which I'm rather ambivalent: rules requiring in-city developers to include robust landscaping features such as green roofs and vegetation-covered walls. It's easy on the eyes, but it may not be smart public policy.
To begin with, it's unclear how much burden Seattle's cutting-edge new rules would impose; and it's unclear how much benefit they'd achieve. But if most developers are skeptical -- and they are, at least according to this article -- then policymakers should listen very carefully.
Burdening developers with additional layers of regulatory complexity, especially here in regulation-heavy Seattle, may not be such a hot idea. Those regulations tend to reduce the viability of further in-city development or raise the cost. Either is bad.
No, I haven't been reading Milton Friedman over the holidays. It's just that when it comes to urban development, I'm not sure that we need a lot of elaborate new policies and procedures. In some case, we simply need less red tape.
Here's why...
